Deductive Reasoning
by xxVisionGirlxx
Summary: Sequel to Selective Memory. Co-written w/ Sunrei. Clois.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Deductive Reasoning  
>Authors: VisionGirl &amp; Sunrei<br>Summary: Takes place after the events of Selective Memory. There will be no sequel to this sequel.

[Chapter one]

"Will you stop that?"

Clark swatted at Lois' determined finger as it zeroed in for another jab to his ribs. He cradled the phone's receiver with his shoulder as he turned his back to her. She wouldn't give him a moment's peace when he was sleeping or doing chores or even showering, so he was hardly surprised that she wouldn't grant him the small courtesy of a single private call.

Still, it was annoying.

"I need to use the phone," Lois explained needlessly as she continued her assault on his midsection.

"Well, you'll have to wait," he ground out, once again lifting the phone out of reach.

The two sets of eyes met in gridlock as they stared at each other in dogged silence. And then -

Poke. Poke.

"Lois!" Clark finally snapped.

"Lois?" The tinny voice on the other line echoed.

Clark fumbled with the phone, surprised. He quickly recovered, plastering on a bright smile he hoped would translate. "No, Lana. Hi."

Clark shot Lois one final dirty glare before turning his attention back to his call. Lois simply shrugged and continued to hover.

"Um, how are you?"

"Good," Lana said, a little breathlessly. "Sorry, I was just getting in when you called."

"In?"

"I was visiting Aunt Nell for the weekend. She had a table at the Metropolitan Flower Expo and needed an extra hand."

Clark frowned. "And you were there all weekend?"

"Yeah. Why? Is something wrong?"

Clark hadn't been expecting that. When he and Lois had discovered the CK + LL = FOREVER burned into the loft's large wooden support beam, it had been his first instinct to call Lana for an explanation.

In truth the whole thing had his stomach in knots. And not for the usual reasons Lana tended to make him nervous. He knew that those burn marks hadn't been made with any soldering iron, or butane torch, or even the sunlamp and magnifying glass Lois had suggested, but with his own heat vision. Taking Lana out of the equation meant that his secret was still safe. And that was a comfort.

But he had to wonder. If she hadn't even been around, what had prompted him to do that?

Beside him, Lois tapped her foot impatiently.

Clark shook himself out of his daze. "No. I was just calling to say hi. You probably have some unpacking to do. I'll, um, let you get back to that."

Clark cut the line. Lois once again began her poking, doubletime.

"Trouble in LanaLand?"

Clark glowered. "My love life is none of your business." He thrust the phone at her. "Here."

"Thank you."

"What was so urgent that it couldn't wait two minutes?"

"I can't find my cell phone. Need to call it." Ignoring his icy look, she punched her number into the handset and waited. "Look alive, Smallville. We're gonna put that famed Clark Kent hearing to the test."

Lois hit send and, much to her disappointment, the living room remained silent save the muffled ring of the phone she already held.

Clark tilted his head, engaging his super-hearing in time to pick up on the familiar, static-y notes of "Survivor." From what he could tell, they were coming from outside by his mother's begonia bed.

Lois looked to him hopefully. "Do you hear anything?"

_I'm a survivor, I'm not gon' give up, I will survive and keep on survivin'_.

Clark smirked. "Nope."

Lois continued to carry the phone around like a divining rod, maneuvering through the room, craning to catch any stray bump, clink, or hiccup her missing phone might emit. As she circled the couch for the second time, she dropped to her knees and put her ear to the cushions.

"Maybe it's on vibrate."

_Ding dong_.

Lois perked.

Clark rolled his eyes. "It's the front door, Lois."

"I knew that," Lois huffed.

"No. You thought your phone was ringing the doorbell."

"Aren't you gonna answer that?"

On the front porch, a UPS man stood waiting with a large box. He greeted Clark with a polite smile and offered him the electronic signature pad.

"I have a package for Lois Lane."

Hearing her name, Lois popped out from around Clark, snatching the box from his hands. Clark quickly finished signing and followed her speedy retreat.

When he got to the kitchen, Lois was already tearing into the box with a long serrated knife.

"What is it?"

"My mail is none of your business," she mimicked, opening the folds. After a minute of digging through the foam peanuts, Lois pulled out two pewter monkey statuettes.

"Huh." Lois eyed them carefully. "Well, I guess we know how I spent my lost days. They're kind of attractive in a hideous sort of way…"

As she handed one off to Clark, he frowned. They were possibly the ugliest things he had ever seen. As he went to place the monkey back into the box, stuffing it deep and out of sight, an inscription at the base caught his eye.

"They're engraved."

"I had my own bookends engraved? Seems a little tacky." Lois turned the figurine around until she found the text and read, "To LoLo. Happy propping. From your…Clarkbar?"

Clark's eyes went wide. "Your who-bar?"

"Oh! Monkey bookends!" Chloe exclaimed as she entered the kitchen. "Hey, now you can finally get those books out of storage."

Lois quirked an eyebrow at her cousin's abrupt entrance. "Didn't you just leave?"

Chloe nodded as she took the bookend from Clark. "And now I'm back." She looked up at her now empty-handed friend and waggled her eyebrows. "Did you see the loft yet, Romeo?"

Before Clark could answer, Lois piped in again. "As much as I hate passing up the chance to lay into Clarkie here, you skipped the part about why you're back."

"I was getting to that. When I was finally able to check my email I had one from you." She pulled a paper out of her bag and handed it to Lois. "Seems like we were gearing up for a big heart to heart earlier."

Lois looked down at the printout and began to read, "Chloe, when you get a chance I really need to talk to you. It's important."

"Good job with the vague, by the way. I tried to call you but you weren't answering your phone." Chloe snorted when her inspection of the figurine finally led to the inscription. "LoLo?"

"Clearly somebody's idea of a sick joke." Lois pinned Clark with narrowed eyes.

Clark held up his hands. "Don't look at me." He jerked a thumb towards their petite friend. "Maybe Chloe did it."

Now fingered, Chloe hopped on the defensive. "No I didn't! Well… I don't think I did."

"I don't really see myself as a 'bar'," Clark balked.

Lois rolled her eyes. "It's a term of affection. A pet name. You don't have to see yourself as one. Someone else does." At Clark's raised eyebrow, Lois continued, "And just to reiterate, that person is not me."

Chloe began to dig through the contents of the box, producing a small blue receipt. She skipped down to the payment information. "These were charged to your credit card, Clark."

"There's your smoking gun, Smallville." Lois smirked. "Or are you now going exclusively by Clarkbar?"

Clark folded his arms, tossing back, "I don't know, Lois, what term of affection do you prefer?"

Defensive positions held, the two ping-ponged heated glares.

As Chloe studied her two best friends, a stray thought began to nip at the back of her mind. It was so vague, so amorphous she couldn't classify it as a memory. Or even a moment of deja vu. Just a … feeling.

"You don't think…" She began tentatively, as if testing out the next thought on even herself. "Something happened between you two."

That got Lois' and Clark's attention. Quickly.

"What?" "Hell no."

Despite their protests, Chloe plowed ahead, her idea now snowballing. "You have to admit the preponderance of the evidence is tilting that way. The mysterious email. The bookends. The barn burnings."

"Clearly that was meant for Lana."

Clark stuffed his hands in his pockets and stayed silent during the exchange. No one needed to know that Lana hadn't been there all weekend. Least of all Lois.

Chloe shrugged. "Or she's not the double L in question. Face it Lois. This is Smallville. Stranger things have happened. Maybe this weekend you guys… connected."

"Only if my amnesia is post-traumatic." As Lois looked back to make sure the barb had landed, she saw Clark's face fall slightly.

"Thanks, Lois."

Lois felt a twinge of guilt. Her aim had been to rile him, not hurt his feelings. Clark wasn't a bad guy, in fact he was one of the best she had ever met. But the two of them were friends and that's where it ended.

"Maybe this place can fill in some of the blanks." Chloe pulled out her cell and called the number listed on the receipt. After a moment she shook her head. "They're closed for lunch."

"What kind of crackpot place closes for lunch?" Lois asked.

Chloe just shrugged, grabbing the box off the counter and placing the bookends back inside.

"I think Clark and I should head up Metropolis and talk to the shopkeep in person. He might have a better chance of remembering something if he can put a face to the name."

"Why you and Clark?"

Chloe's eyes snapped to Clark's. "It'll just be… faster."

As her two friends looked anywhere but her direction, Lois suddenly felt like she was the only one in the room not in on some privileged information. She was about question her cousin when it hit her. "Oh. I get it."

Chloe shifted. "What? Get what?"

"No way am I letting you two skip off to Metropolis to get the real story without me so you can come back and mess with my head."

"Lois we wouldn't-"

"We're all going." Lois snatched her keys off counter. "And I'm driving."

"Okay. Where's my car?"

The three friends stood dumbly searching the empty driveway.

"Was it here when we got back?" Clark asked.

Lois scoffed. "I didn't think to look."

"First your cellphone and now your car. Gee, Lois, seems like your personal possessions have finally pulled off their great escape," Clark teased, earning him a swift punch to the shoulder.

Chloe began to rummage for her keys. "Maybe I should just drive."

"We are not going anywhere until I find my car," Lois demanded. And then, as an afterthought added, "Bonus points for the phone."

As the girls wandered off in different directions, Clark super-scanned the perimeter, sweeping the bushes, the back forty, the loft until finally -

"I, um, think I see something."

Chloe followed Clark to the back of the barn where they found Lois' Focus parked up to its wheels in mud.

"What the hell?"

Lois sprinted past them to get a better look at her mysteriously relocated car.

"What did you do?" Chloe whispered to a baffled Clark. "I mean, that's a little extreme as far as pranks go."

"Where are the tire tracks?"

Before Lois could investigate that thought, Clark quickly changed the subject. "You know, we should probably go. It's three hours to Metropolis, we don't want to risk missing the clerk ."

"Shotgun!" Chloe called out, making a move for the handle. She caught Lois' eye on the way in. "Or are co-pilot duties reserved for your Clark-bar?"

Lois' expression darkened. "It's getting old, Chlo," she warned, slipping into the driver's seat. Clark stayed silent as he buckled up in the back.

"But, Lois - "

"For the last time, nothing happened between us. This so called evidence has just been a strange, and highly unfortunate, series of coincidences. That's it. The way I felt about Smallville yesterday was the same way I felt about him a week ago. Or two weeks ago. Trust me, there is nothing romantic about Lois and Clark."

Lois turned the ignition, and suddenly the car was filled with the double-barreled guitar assault of an earnest power ballad.

_Is this love. That I'm feeling? Is this the love? That I've been searching for?_

All eyes were on Lois as she sighed deeply.

"Eh tu, Whitesnake?"

Desperate to put an end to the recrimination that was pouring out of the speakers, Lois hit the eject button five times in quick succession-to ensure that her point was made. Perhaps, though, her stereo hadn't appreciated the rough treatment because her jabs only succeeded in starting the song over-five times.

She turned the sound off completely... and was met with the smirking faces of her passengers. No doubt [i]this[/i] would lead to a pleasant conversation...

Choosing the lesser of two evils, she turned he volume back up and hit the accelerator. The wheels spun futilely in the mud.

"We're stuck."

"Someone's going to have to push." Chloe opened her door and looked at the sloppy mess below. "Um, draw straws?"

"Chloe, don't be ridiculous. Whoever tries to shove us out of this is going to get filthy," Lois said. "Clark, you do it."

TBC...


	2. Chapter 2

[CHAPTER 2]

The little bell over the door jangled abruptly as the door to the 'Ye Shoppe of Olde Goodes' was pushed open by an irritated Lois Lane. Normally a rabid fan of Whitesnake, after enduring the ride to Metropolis with a stuck cd, she wasn't sure she would be able to listen to those rock ballads in the same way again. And that was a shame… because in a world where everything that was rightside up, Whitesnake ruled.

Sighing, Lois took in the rows and shelves of knick-knacks and tried not to be enchanted.

"Doesn't look like anyone is around," Clark offered, earning a glare from Lois for the statement of the obvious.

Seeing that an argument was brewing, Chloe stepped in. "Hello?"

A door behind the cash register opened to reveal the back of an older woman. Clark rushed over to help her with the box she was carrying just as she turned around.

"Oh!" the woman exclaimed when the weight was suddenly lifted from her arms. "Thank you… I heard the bell but wanted to get this last box…" She trailed off as she took a closer look at Clark's face. "I remember you. The bookend purchase. Was there a problem? Did they not get delivered?"

Lois decided to take that moment to step forward, holding aloft the bag she had stowed the bookends in. "Oh, they got delivered all right… we're just trying to figure out why."

The elderly clerk looked at Lois with a puzzled expression. "Well… you chose them, dear. Don't you remember?"

Lois lowered the bag again. "Well, see that's the thing… the memory part. I don't remember choosing them…"

The woman's face morphed into one of concerned dismay. "You don't like them?"

Lois moved forward and set the bag on the counter, reaching in and pulling the bookends out as she spoke. "Oh, no, I love them, actually – totally something I would pick out - but can we do something about this engraving?"

Chloe laughed disbelievingly. "Lois!" she scoffed as she stepped up next to her cousin. "Ma'am, we're not here about the engraving…"

"Speak for yourself!" Lois entered, lifting the offending statue back to the older woman's line of vision. "If we could just file this part off…"

Chloe cleared her throat. "The memory thing is the issue at hand," she said, using her hip to nudge Lois to the side as she reclaimed the woman's attention.

The poor clerk's eyes widened at all the competition for her focus. She turned her head to look at the young man and realized that he was still holding the box. Absently, she gestured to the floor space near an empty shelf. "You can set that over there."

When he moved to comply, she turned back to the two young women. "I'm sorry, I don't understand…"

Chloe neatly cut off Lois's impending remark. "It turns out that these two," she waved a hand between Lois and Clark, "are having a little trouble recalling the events of the past few days and when we got the delivery we knew they were here at some point. It seemed like a good place to start."

"Well of course they were here," the woman said, turning her head to take in Clark's sheepish expression. She found it odd that the two young people couldn't remember where they'd been the past few days. "I know people are saying that drugs are all the rage with kids these days but, they didn't look high…" she commented, frowning.

Chloe caught the words and pounced on them. "How _did_ they look, exactly?"

The woman chuckled at a memory. "Very much in love," she answered fondly.

Clark's eyes popped. "Very much in what?"

Lois leaned to the side so she could clearly see the woman from where she was standing behind Chloe. "Wha... what did you just say?" She turned to Chloe. "What did she just say?"

Clark seemed to have hit a scratch on his mental record player. "Very much in what?"

"In love," the woman responded. "You were both very affectionate and very…" she paused to think.

Chloe bit back a smile as Lois's grip on her engraved bookend tightened while they all waited for the woman to finish.

"…Happy."

Lois didn't know what she was expecting the clerk to say, but that wasn't it. Something about the simple word struck her as being strangely profound. Happy. When had she ever felt just that?

Flicking a glance at Clark, she saw that the expression on his face looked just as perplexed with that information as she felt.

"How is it that they can't remember?" the woman asked.

"Oh, amnesia," Chloe stated casually – after all, for Smallville residents amnesia wasn't the worst that could happen…

"Amnesia! Oh my!" The woman stepped over to place a hand on Clark's arm. "Are you okay, honey?"

Lois rolled her eyes over the attention that Clark was getting over a malaise that they all shared. "It's not even his first time," she muttered.

"It's not?"

Chloe realized that they were going to give this poor woman an aneurysm. She lifted her hands placatingly. "Well, it's not like that… I mean, it's not that serious."

"Not serious?"

Chloe frowned – she wasn't successfully alleviating the woman's concern and frustratingly, Lois and Clark weren't helping any. They were both seemingly lost in their own worlds. "No, no, of course amnesia is serious, especially if it's induced by head trauma… which ours wasn't…"

The woman placed her free hand over her heart. "You have amnesia as well?"

Chloe's face scrunched as she pondered a way to answer that. "Um… amnesia is kind of a stretch, actually. It's more like a, uh… a virus."

The clerk looked doubtful. "Like a cold?"

"Exactly," Chloe responded with a wide smile. "Like when you have a fever and can't remember being sick when you wake up."

"And those two…?" the woman asked, referring to the still dazed duo.

"…Weren't themselves," Chloe answered. Then she frowned as and amended her assessment, "That's the theory, anyway…"

That comment drew Lois from her introspection. "Well, I for one am thinking that we were under some kind of… spell."

"A spell, Lois?" Clark questioned.

"How else would you explain the…" Lois waved a hand in the air as if trying to avoid saying the word that was most applicable. "…love fest?" she finally ended.

The clerk chuckled, and to Chloe's relief looked less like she was going to have an attack of some sort… although, she was looking at the bickering Lois and Clark as if she had a secret…

"You know what? I can't think about this without food," Lois announced. She turned away from Clark, effectively ending their argument, and addressed the older woman. "Is there a good place to eat around here?"

When the woman began laughing in earnest, Lois flicked a confused glance to her counterparts. "What?"

"Oh I'm sorry, honey. I don't mean to be rude; it's just that something must be coming back to you. That's the exact same thing you asked me the last time you were here."

* * *

><p>Forty-five minutes later found the three musketeers seated around a table at the diner the store clerk had suggested… apparently for the second time. The idea of being able to fill in more of the memory blanks [i]and[i] get food had been too good to pass up. Unfortunately, none of the people on staff at the time they arrived to the restaurant remembered seeing Lois or Clark before.

Lois eyed Clark's plate warily wondering if the 'World's Best Bacon Burger' would live up to its name. Just before she could complete her move to steal one of his French fries, she heard the voice of their waiter, Raphael.

"Hey guys, my shift is over but I wanted to make sure everything was okay before I left."

"Aww Raphie," Lois teased – she was feeling more genial now that she was no longer starving, "what are we going to do without you?"

"Don't worry, sweets, I'm not totally abandoning you." He waved for the waitress who had just finished delivering water to a nearby table to come over. "Sheila just came in and she'll be taking care of you for me."

"Oh hell no!"

Four pairs of eyes widened at Sheila's exclamation upon arriving at the table.

"I can't believe you had the nerve to come back here."

Chloe exchanged a look with her two best friends. "I take it you've seen them before."

"Unfortunately." Sheila glared at Lois with open hostility.

"Sheila, honey…" Raphael cautioned.

The waitress shook her head at his tone. "Remember 48 cents?" she asked her colleague. Then she nodded her head toward Lois.

Raphael's jaw dropped. "She's the one that stole your tip?"

Lois balked. "I stole your tip?" she asked incredulously.

Sheila's eyes narrowed. "You two were all over each other. This is a family restaurant, and while we don't behoove our customers the right to express affection, the extent of your PDA was sickening."

Clark lowered his burger to his plate. "PDA? Like… kissing and stuff?"

"It was more on the 'stuff' side, from what I hear," Raphael offered with a smirk.

Sheila nodded. "I was actually surprised you had time to steal my tip since your hands were preoccupied with his…"

Chloe coughed and began patting her chest. "Well! This has been enlightening…"

"With his _what_?" Lois demanded darkly.

"Uh, Lois…" Chloe began.

"I kind of want to know too," Clark entered hesitantly.

Sheila's gaze turned to Clark and dipped briefly before she turned back to meet Lois's eyes challengingly. Everyone sitting or standing at the table caught the meaning of that look and Clark's ears turned red. Lois's face, on the other hand, lost all color.

Sheila returned her attention to Clark. "Seeing as she's not in your lap, I'm guessing you've cooled off a bit. Is she always that aggressive?"

Lois blinked off her stupor. "Okay, I get that you're upset… but really - all this over a measly three dollars?"

"It was ten, actually."

"Ten dollars?" Lois looked horrified. "We gave you ten dollars for delivering a burger?"

Sheila raised her eyebrows. "_He_ gave me ten dollars," she corrected. "_You_ stole it… and now you're here acting like I didn't see you do it and you can pretend it didn't happen."

"That's not what I'm… Ten dollars?" Lois repeated incredulously, flicking her gaze to Clark.

Chloe couldn't help but be amused by the situation. "Well maybe he was distracted when he pulled his wallet out."

Sheila laughed dryly. "Yeah, distracted with her tongue in his…"

"All right!" Lois said, pushing her plate away – appetite sufficiently aborted. "I got it. Sheila – I apologize for… reallocating your tip, but the truth is, I don't remember any of it." She decided not to voice the thought that if she took the tip she probably had good reason.

"You don't remember it?" Sheila looked doubtful. "Any of it?" She looked from Lois to Clark, getting a head shake from each of them. Then she smirked and looked back at Lois. "So, I take it you were high?"

* * *

><p>Chloe pursed her lips together to stop from smiling as the lead singer of Whitesnake demanded to know if he would lie to his lady love. Lois had just turned the key in the ignition and was cursing under her breath. From the set of her jaw and the glint in her eye, Chloe knew that she was going to need a moment to decompress before they could start talking about 'it' again.<p>

As she began rummaging through her purse for her cell phone, memories of the diner experience resurfaced and Chloe was unable to withhold the bark of laughter they stimulated.

"Sorry," she muttered unapologetically when Lois glared at her. Then she began scrolling through the recent call list on her phone. As she moved down the list, she noticed an entry that she had titled 'Doc. Hastings' with multiple calls. Not remembering a Dr. Hastings being someone of interest or association before the memory gap, she decided to give him a call.

Lois glanced into the rearview mirror as she heard Chloe begin a phone conversation with what sounded like a receptionist at a doctor's office. In the backseat, Clark was gazing out of the window watching – or not watching – the scenery pass by. Taking in his obviously broody expression, she couldn't figure out what had possibly gotten into her. As much as she hated the idea that she was the one that initiated some kind of relationship with Clark, all things were pointing in that direction. From what she knew about Clark, his mild-mannered vanilla personality would never result in him being the aggressor.

The only answer she could think of as to how she had gotten to a place where she was comfortable with public displays of affection was that in addition to losing her memory, she had lost her mind.

As for Clark, his mind was similarly preoccupied with thoughts of his reported behavior with Lois. Kissing, tongues, hands in inappropriate places… it was all so out of character for him - especially considering that his partner in crime was [i]Lois[/i], of all people. She was brash, rude, outspoken… and passionate. He glanced toward the front of the car and momentarily caught Lois's gaze in the rearview mirror – they both quickly looked away. Swallowing uncomfortably, Clark thought back to the claims of the woman at the antique shop. She had said they were in love.

The crease in the middle of his forehead grew more pronounced as he pondered that notion. In love with Lois Lane?

Inconceivable.


	3. Chapter 3

[CHAPTER 3]

As soon as Lois had yanked back the parking brake she was out of the car and moving towards the farmhouse.

Chloe had been able to speak with her Dr. Hastings only to discover that Clark had been suffering from his own bout of amnesia during their missing days. With that new piece of information in her arsenal, her cousin had come to the conclusion that with Clark's memories out to sea, Lois must have been the one to take advantage. The past three hours had been unmitigated torture as Chloe expounded theory after theory of how Lois had seduced Clark.

_Maybe you hid in a haystack._

_Maybe you baked him a pie. Oh. No - maybe you _bought_ him a pie._

_Maybe you dressed up in that French Maid's outfit I saw in your closet. What's the deal with that anyway?_

Lois doubled-timed it when she heard the slam of a car door signal her cousin's exit.

"Where are you going?" Chloe called after her, just barely out of the vehicle.

Lois kept her blinders firmly in place as she jogged up the front steps. "To find the truth."

She was almost at the door when Chloe asked, "Have you looked next to the wedding invitations?"

Lois whirled, marching back to where her cousin still stood chuckling.

"Get your yucks in now, dear cousin, because once I find out what really happened - and not this farce that you and Little Boy Blue have constructed - you," Lois jabbed an accusing finger at Chloe before sending one Clark's way for good measure, "and you will rue the day you messed with Lois Lane. You will rue it. And you will regret it!"

Chloe's smirk only grew. "Same thing, Lo."

Lois's eyes narrowed dangerously as she ground out, "Well, I doubley mean it."

Clark stepped in between the cousins. "Maybe we should just cool down for a second. Put our heads together."

"Fat chance, Square Dance," Lois snapped. "And for the record my head and all adjoining parts are OFF LIMITS." She emphasized the last words with two solid pokes to Clark's chest. Clark threw his hands up - Message received- and Lois once again set out towards the farmhouse.

As the two watched her go, Chloe leaned into Clark. "She's taking it better than I thought she would."

Clark cringed as Lois slammed the screen door behind her, rattling the chains on the porch swing.

"What about you, Romeo? You're surprisingly mellow."

"I'm circling emotions. I think shock may be waving me in for a landing."

"Well, as far as make out buddies go, you could do worse," Chloe said as she reached through the car window to grab her research. "Most guys would give their right arm to breech my cousin's personal space."

"I'm not most guys."

"When it comes to bench pressing a tractor, sure. But given recent events, maybe on this one you're a little closer to the Average Joe."

"I guess..." Clark wavered, hesitant to go down this path again. "What do we do now?"

"The same thing we do everyday, Clark." Chloe thwacked the folders against his chest. "Investigate!"

* * *

><p>CK + LL = Forever.<p>

Clark used his microvision to take a closer look at the scorched declaration. Earlier in the day it had held so much promise. And now? He didn't know what to make of it. In what set of circumstances would he ever want to plus Lois?

He'd always thought Lois was beautiful. That was never the issue. But attraction was held at bay by a wave of annoyance that flared up in her proximity. They had met under the worst of circumstances, with lives on the line and tensions at their highest. And even after life went back to status quo, those feelings stayed tied to Lois.

Anxiety. Uncertainty. Aggravation.

But now, he couldn't help but wonder what feelings she would evoke if things had been different...

"Well, your diary is no help," Chloe announced from across the room, stuffing the item in question back under Clark's futon.

"How do you know where I keep my journal?"

Chloe plastered on an innocent smile. "Uh, lucky guess?"

Clark ran a frustrated hand through his hair and flopped down on the futon. Sensing her friend's distress, Chloe quelled her inexplicable mirth about the situation - for now.

"You okay?"

"Yes. No. I don't know. It's so strange to think that for two days Lois and I were doing..." Clark waved his hand, unsure of how to finish the thought.

"Each other?" Chloe offered.

"Chloe!"

"What? You had to be thinking it!" Chloe argued. "Lois isn't Lana, Clark. She's not some wilting flower who waits for you to pin her at Homecoming. She sees what she wants and she takes it. And if she wanted you..."

"You're forgetting one thing, Chloe. My secret."

"Clark, you had amnesia. For you, there was no secret."

"I knew enough to burn that message into the barn. You were around at the start of this. You must have filled me in."

Chloe nodded. "I guess I would have had to before you started yanking doors off their hinges."

"See? So regardless of what Lois -" At Chloe's eyebrow lift Clark conceded, "or I - wanted at the time, there's no way I would ever be intimate with someone without letting her know who I really am."

"Hey! Guess who is always right?"

The heart to heart was cut short when Lois sprinted up the loft stairs to meet them, each step like a victory lap.

"Me. The answer is me," she needlessly clarified when she finally got to the top, looking all kinds of smug.

"Good news?" Chloe ventured.

"Very. If I had a trumpet I would be signaling the arrival of..." Lois raised her hand to reveal her cellphone. "Ta da! I found it in the bushes out back."

Chloe frowned. "What was it doing in a bush?"

"Not important. The key is that I found it."

"I'm guessing there is something worthwhile stored inside?"

"Better than the Ark of the Covenant," Lois countered. "Listen to this."

Lois clicked on the speaker phone, and Chloe's static-y voice filled the room.

_Lois, you need to calm down. I know you're freaked out but you only have to pretend a little longer. If Clark learns too soon that you're not actually his girlfriend, we don't know what kind of damage could be done. Please just stall. I'll be back as soon as I can._

Lois thumbed off the call with a triumphant grin.

"I didn't seduce anyone! Apparently, when Smallville here had his pre-amnesia amnesia, he thought we were a couple. I was told to play along so his head wouldn't explode!" She shot Clark a sidelong look. "You're welcome, by the way."

Clark shrugged. "Thanks."

"So there you have it. Clark Kent? Lovesick idiot. Lois Lane? Good Samaritan. Case closed."

"Hold up, Lois. That doesn't explain the diner incident."

"Sure it does! I was acting."

"You're not that good of an actress."

"Says you."

"Yeah, and I saw you in your sixth grade production of Cinderella. You forgot your lines, went off script and punched the door mouse who laughed at you."

"It's called improv," Lois huffed.

Chloe wasn't buying it. "Maybe it started out as a charade, but somewhere along the line, you drank the Kool Aid."

"That's ridiculous! Clark may have been braindead - no offense, Smallville - but I was still me. Do you really think he charmed me with vandalism?" Lois asked, pointing to the scrawl overhead.

Clark stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I thought it was kind of nice..."

"Can it, Smallville!" Lois spat and quickly turned to Chloe realizing it was evidence for her cause. "See? When it comes to Clark my default reaction is snipe!"

"Maybe now. But somewhere, somehow, that changed."

Her ace in the hole shot down, Lois was in full pace mode. "What do you people want from me? This was the smoking gun! I've got nothing else! I checked the house. I've checked the car. Nothing's different! The weirdest thing I could find was that my Netflix queue had been stacked with alien movies."

With her back turned she didn't notice that Clark had gone deathly pale.

"I don't even LIKE Independence Day! But then again, I didn't like Smallville. Black is white, up is down, the whole damn world is WRONG." Lois let out a dramatic sigh before heading for the stairs. "I'm going to check the house again."

After a few moments of silence, as the enormity of the revelation settled on the two friends, Clark finally found his voice.

"Oh god. We had sex."

Chloe just nodded. "Yeah you did."


	4. Chapter 4

[CHAPTER 4]

"Ooh! Cookies!"

Taking the plate of Mrs. Kent's famous Snickerdoodle Cookies to the kitchen island, Chloe placed herself strategically so that she could see into the adjoining rooms. She was not nearly as worked up as the other two—definitely in part because of the cookies. In fact, she was finding all of this amusing.

Earlier she'd had a tinge of something that worried her for a minute. The thought that maybe *just maybe* Clark and Lois had done something point of no return-y during that period of time that was all fuzzy and blank for all of them, but then, after watching them both freak out at the mere thought of… sticky buns… well, she didn't think that either Subconscious Lois or Subconscious Clark would have gone for that.

Chloe's expression suddenly sobered.

But what if they did? Would that be so bad?

Clark had been extremely silent on the walk back to the house from the barn. The whole 'sex' thing had him wigged out, even though Chloe had only agreed to get a rise out him. She had last left him standing on the porch pondering the possibilities. They were both so sensitive!

"Chloe…"

Clark's sudden appearance at her side startled her into dropping her cookie on the floor. She watched with a pout as Shelby gobbled it up.

Clark continued in a quiet voice, unhindered by the lost cookie. "…You don't really think…" His eyes lifted upwards to where they could hear Lois's footsteps thumping from room to room upstairs.

Chloe sighed and reached for another cookie. She raised her eyebrows at him. "Think what?"

He nodded his head slowly—deliberately. "That Lois and I…"

She began to nod with him, slowly—deliberately. "…That Lois and you…?"

"You know!" He followed up with a wave of his hand.

"Tipped a cow?" Chloe asked, around another bite.

The hand waving stopped. "Chloe."

She brushed some crumbs off the side of her mouth. "Sorry! Just having a little fun…" She took in his expression. "Or not," she muttered under her breath. "For the record, no. I don't think you and Lois…" She nodded slowly and waved a hand. "I mean, when you found out that I knew your secret, you didn't assume that we'd automatically go close encounter of the penile kind."

Clark frowned at her in confusion.

"Not that I would have expected... a close… encounter of *any*… " She trailed off awkwardly. "Anyway! The point is—no. I'm sure Lois left your dignity intact," she teased.

Clark looked relieved and Chloe couldn't help but to prod, following along with her earlier thoughts. "What would be so bad about it?"

"Bad? About Lois… and me?"

Chloe nodded. "Quiet as it's kept, guys tend to find her attractive." She studied Clark's apparent unease with the line of questioning. "Also, quiet as it's kept, you are a guy."

Clark swallowed. Maybe the most upsetting part about that imagined situation being real was the not remembering it. "I need to figure out if I really told her about me," he announced, changing the subject and ending the conversation by walking out of the room.

Chloe watched him leave with raised eyebrows and a smirk.

She was about to take another bite of her cookie when Lois thundered down the steps. She arrived at the island where Chloe was sitting and dropped a black garment on the table.

"Cookie?" Chloe offered, sliding the plate in her cousin's direction.

Lois paused in her impending tirade to study the plate for a moment before giving in and snatching one up. "I figured it out!" she announced before taking a bite.

Chloe lifted the black garment up to see that it was a turtleneck. "Do tell!"

"Spies," Lois replied. "They're all spies."

Chloe bit back a chuckle when Lois pinned her with a fierce gaze. "It explains everything. The secrecy, the disappearing acts… Clark's obsession with Lana."

Chloe frowned as she tried to follow the last one.

"The girl wears a lot of black," Lois added.

Chloe munched on her and shrugged agreeably. "However true, I don't think they're spies, Lois."

The older cousin jumped at that. "Ha! You don't *think*…" she observed, pointing with her half-eaten cookie.

"They're not spies, Lois."

Shoulders slumping, Lois snatched the shirt back and narrowed her eyes. "Something's not right about this."

"Just admit it, Lo. You find Clark attractive and he grew on you with his neediness."

Lois scoffed. "Neediness is not attractive, Chlo. The only way my head could be turned by Tall, Dark, and Plaid, would be if he took my chin in his hand and forced it." Then she turned and sprinted back up the stairs.

Her last statement gave Chloe an idea. She pondered it as she popped the last of her cookie into her mouth.

A moment later, when Clark re-entered the kitchen through the den alcove, Chloe was ready. "Red K," she said.

Whatever Clark had been about to say was pre-empted by that statement. "I wasn't on Red K," he said.

"No, but without your memories, you also would be without your inhibitions. Remember what happened when you put on your class ring?" When he still didn't catch on, Chloe added, "I'm thinking you hit on her. Bold Clark is hard to turn away."

Clark straightened. "He is? I mean, I am? She'd like that?" At Chloe's amused expression, he cleared his throat and tugged at his shirt. "Not that… it matters."

"It would if it made you comfortable enough to tell her your secret," Chloe quipped. Then she relented, easing up on the needling for a moment. "Clark, Lois is not what you think…"

"Found it!" Lois announced, jumping down the last of the stairs with one hand holding a piece of paper held high. "Vindication! Validation!" She hesitated. "…And another word that means that I'm right."

"Verification?" Clark offered.

Lois glared at him and presented the item she'd held in her hand to Chloe. "He had this!"

Chloe took it and saw that it was a picture of Lois. She looked up at Clark and turned it so he could see.

"Under his mattress!" Lois added for additional ammo.

Clark shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at his feet.

"See!" Lois said. "I told you it couldn't have been me. I'm the one here who was victimized, villianized, and…" She paused.

"Violated?" Chloe asked. Ignoring, the mean look Lois gave her, she shrugged. "I dunno- it still doesn't show why you were a willing partner when the ruse was up."

Lois pouted, unable to counter that point. After a silent moment, she turned and made her way into the den.

Chloe chuckled and looked over at Clark, holding the picture up again. "Wow, you must have had it bad."

Clark shuffled his feet and mumbled a reply. "That was there before."

Chloe's eyebrows lifted.

"I have pictures of all my friends!"

"Under your mattress?" she returned dryly.

Clark grabbed the picture and slid it into his back pocket. "The Netflix thing," he began sheepishly. "It doesn't sound like she freaked… if I told her." It was both a statement and a question.

Chloe shook her head and thought about it for a moment, smiling fondly. "No. Lois would probably buy you a pack of Reeses Pieces just to see if Speilberg had it right." It was strange to feel this way considering the way she had once been heels over head for Clark Kent, but now, thinking of the way the day had gone, the idea of the two of them together had planted a seed.

"You know, Clark, if you really like her you should…"

"Back!" Lois announced, lively. "He possessed me."

Both Clark and Chloe tilted their heads at her. "Possessed?"

"Or hypnotized," Lois added, as if they carried the same weight of believability. She held up a pocket watch dangling on the end of a silver chain. "Why would you own this except to hypnotize people—namely me?"

Clark reached for the watch. "To tell time?"

Lois released the chain into his hand and put hers on her hips. "A likely story!"

"It was my grandfather's watch," Clark replied, taking some steam out of her latest theory.

"Your grandfather… the hypnotist?" Lois fired back.

"No. The farmer."

Chloe started laughing in earnest at that, earning her a glare from both of them. "Sorry," she said sheepishly, reaching for another cookie.

Her hand was rudely snatched before it reached the plate. "Hey!"

"Enough with the Cookie Monster routine!" Lois exclaimed, holding her cousin's arm. "We could use a little help here."

Chloe sighed and hopped off the stool. "Fine, I'll go do the Drew and see if anything out of the ordinary pops up." She went to gather her purse and keys, snagging a cookie on her way out the door.

Left alone, Lois turned to study Clark for a moment, making him feel decidedly more uneasy under her scrutiny. When she stepped close and kissed him, he was taken totally off guard.

She stepped back and rubbed a thumb across her bottom lip.

"Wh-what was that?"

"A test," Lois answered. "That just proved to me that we are *so* not compatible. I had to be possessed." She looked relieved with her findings, as she smiled gaily and walked away.

Clark watched her go in a stupor; ego slightly bruised. "I wasn't ready," he muttered. "I wasn't ready!"

* * *

><p>At the end of the gravel drive, Lana Lang waved at Chloe as the blonde's car passed by. "Hey Chloe…"<p>

"Hi Lana! Bye Lana! Sorry, gotta run!"

Frowning, Lana continued down the drive and parked her car. She arrived at the screen door of the Kent home and let herself inside as was usual. She smiled as she noticed Lois leaving the kitchen area, passing her as she went. "Hi Lois, I…"

"Lana, hi…" Lois barely slowed her stride as she noted the other woman's presence. "Sorry, now's not a good time."

A little taken aback at this second brusque greeting, Lana watched Lois dart through the den and wondered at the amused smile she'd seen on her face.

Her thoughts about Lois faded when she turned to see Clark approaching. "Clark! Hi. I thought maybe after you called that we…"

"Oh. Lana," he replied distractedly, blinking at her as if not really welcoming her there. "Yeah, sorry about that. I realized later that it wasn't you I meant to call." He paused at her shocked look. "Listen, I'm a little busy right now…" he said as he began moving past her. "Uh, see you later?"

Lana watched as he disappeared in the direction Lois had gone and scoffed. She turned on her heel and opened the door to leave.

"Well don't expect me to be waiting!" she muttered to anyone who was listening. Then she stepped back into the kitchen to snag a cookie before stalking indignantly out to her car.

Shelby raised a doggie brow briefly before shrugging and returning to his nap.

* * *

><p>When Clark caught up to Lois, she was in his room and his determination to save his ego dissipated with his nerve. He had planned on having some reaction to the kiss, but not having planned in his mind what exactly that response would be, his bravado fled him once he was looking at her.<p>

She turned to face him and threw her hands in the air in exasperation. "Good. You're here. I've scoured this whole room except your underwear drawer and your journal," she said, pointing out the drawer. "I'm not even going there so dig in."

Clark frowned as he unconsciously started moving in the direction she had pointed out for him. "I thought you were convinced it was possession…" he said. "Why are we still looking?"

"I *am* convinced I was possessed," she answered, plopping down on the bed. "Considering my movie watch-list, I'm thinking more along the lines of body snatching, but until I have proof…" she hesitated. "Let's just say I'm curious."

Clark let it stand as he slid open his drawer. "How did you know this is where my journal was if you didn't go in the drawer?" he asked, picking up the book.

Lois crossed her arms over her chest. "I said I didn't *search* them, not that I didn't *see* them."

Clark shook his head and pushed the drawer shut again. He was sure that his underwear didn't hold any clues about the relationship he and Lois had supposedly had. He glanced at her briefly to make sure she wasn't watching before spinning the dials on the side so his combination would appear.

"By the way," Lois piped up, "that lock is pretty basic to pick and you should consider a different hiding place. Good move on having a decoy journal for nosy cousins to find though."

Clark looked in horror down at the latch as he popped it open. "You picked the lock?"

Lois scoffed. "I *could* have picked the lock. I didn't." She met his gaze soberly. "It's one thing to find your nudie stash, it's another to go rifling through your personal thoughts."

Her sincerity moved him, and he once again had a feeling that there might be a depth to Lois Lane that he'd never credited her with before. Flipping through the pages of his journal from the back, he sought out the most recent entry in hopes that his amnesiatic self had thought to record something during those missing days.

He was shocked when he realized that the last entry was actually not penned in his handwriting. It was Lois's. His heart pounded as he read what she'd obviously meant to be a letter to him.

Looking up from the journal, Clark found himself staring bewilderedly into Lois's waiting gaze. Rocked to his core by the words she'd penned to him, he realized that in those missing memories, she had proved to be everything that he never thought he could have. Acceptance. Maybe even Love?

The thought that he'd had all of that and could very well never remember it *or* experience it again spurred him to throw all caution to the wind.

"I'm an alien," he announced.

Lois regarded him silently for a moment. "You learned that from your journal?"

"No, I always knew that. I mean, not always, but I already knew it. I learned it from my dad… and then later my mom."

She narrowed her eyes at him studiously.

He sighed. "This is coming out wrong." He wondered how he had told her the first time, because this wasn't anything near a smooth revelation. "Here." He handed the journal over, opened to the page he had been reading.

After a few silent minutes, she looked up. "Wow."

Clark waited nervously for her to continue.

"I was *way* off with the spy thing."


	5. Chapter 5

[Epilogue]

ONE MONTH LATER

"No, the Antonio's on Fifth has the Michelin star. Antonio's on Eighth has the cockroaches." Chloe reported as she walked the gravel driveway to the Kent Farm.

"No, I'm sure. I made the mistake last time and -"

Chloe was interrupted by a loud shriek somewhere in the distance and craned her neck to find the source. She finally spotted Lois sprinting out from the barn with Clark hot on her heels.

She watched in confusion as Clark grabbed Lois roughly from behind and slung her over his shoulder, his lip curling into a satisfied sneer. She had only ever seen that look once before, Junior year when Clark had been under the influence of red meteor rock. She was about to dismiss the possibility when Clark's hand reached up to brace Lois' kicking legs and she noticed something glinting in the sunlight.

A ring.

"Lana, I'm going to have to call you back." Chloe thumbed off the call before her friend had the chance to respond.

When the two disappeared into the farmhouse, Chloe quickly sprang into action, popping the trunk of her VW bug and sifting through her arsenal of grappling hooks and flashbangs until she found the small lead box buried deep beneath the mess. With shaky hands she cracked the lid and pulled out the green stone. She looked at it warily, hoping she could summon the strength to do what needed to be done.

By the time Chloe got to the living room, Clark had Lois pinned down on the couch. She squirmed beneath him, trying to get free.

"Get away from her!" Chloe screamed, thrusting the green Kryptonite into his midsection. Clark howled in pain and rolled off of the couch, smashing the wooden coffee table to splinters.

"Give me the ring, Clark!"

As Chloe stepped closer, Clark rolled away, desperate to shield himself from the effects of the rock.

Lois, who hadn't moved from the couch, finally snapped out of her daze. "Chloe! You're hurting him!"

"Stay back, Lois!" Chloe warned before turning back to Clark. "Give me the ring!"

Chloe grabbed his sleeve, pulling his hand eye-level. As she went to pry the ring off of his finger she noticed something was wrong.

A smooth gold band. No meteor rock in sight. "Where's the sto- oof!"

Chloe's question was cut short when Lois tackled her from behind. The cousins landed in a heap, sending the Kryptonite skidding across the floor.

"Are you crazy?"

"Are you?" Lois countered, scurrying to her feet and tossing the rock out an open window.

Clark let out a deep sigh of relief, the color beginning to return to his face. He propped himself up on his elbows and turned to his friend. "I'm not on Red Kryptonite."

"Then what -"

"I'm married."

Chloe frowned. "And that's supposed to convince me you're NOT on Red Kryptonite?"

Lois helped Clark to his his feet and instead of releasing his hand, simply laced her fingers with his.

"_We're_ married," she clarified, needlessly, flashing her own set of jewelry.

As the news sunk in, Chloe's confusion instantly turned to rage. "I can't believe you two didn't tell me!"

"You're not exactly the easiest person to tell, Chloe."

Chloe braced her hands on her hips, insulted. "And why not?"

Lois scoffed. "Are you really asking us that?"

Clark tried a more delicate approach. "We knew you would probably... poke some fun at the situation."

"I would not!"

"Just so we're clear, are you mad that we got married or that we didn't tell you?"

"Both!" Chloe snapped, exasperated. "I can't believe how irresponsible you two are! Clark's still in high school! You two fight all the time! Lois - "

"Chloe," Clark interrupted, voice firm. "I love her."

The wind kicked out of her tirade, Chloe looked to Lois. Her cousin gave Clark a quick kiss before shrugging.

" 'Fraid so."

"When did this happen? How did this happen?"

"I guess it all started when we read Clark's journal - "

"_I_ read Clark's journal. There was nothing in it but football stats and star charts."

"- when we read Clark's REAL journal -" she clarified, ignoring Chloe's scowl. "And found out we had gotten pretty close during Clark's memory loss. After a few days of panic and avoidance, we decided that we should just see if what happened was a fluke. Like an experiment."

"I guess it was a success."

"Please don't feel bad that we didn't tell you, Chloe. We haven't even told my parents."

"You didn't tell you parents you were married?" Chloe blinked and the enormity of the situation dawned on her. "Wait... You've been living with your parents as a couple for a week..."

"Two weeks," Lois inserted.

Chloe's glare intensified, but she took it in stride. "...Two weeks and your parents don't know that you're married?"

Clark winced. "...or dating."

"Why would yo-" Chloe's jaw dropped. "Are you pregnant?"

"Is who pregnant?"

The three looked over at the new voice that had entered the conversation. Mr. Kent stood, arms crossed, in the doorway. Beside him, Mrs. Kent was zeroed in on Lois' and Clark's hands which were still linked.

"Mom! Dad!" Clark squeaked, surprised. "You're back early!"

Sensing a very long, very loud family discussion, Chloe attempted her escape. "Oh, I just remembered I have a place to be... that's not here," she vamped, inching toward the door. "Bye Mr. Kent. Bye Mrs. Kent." Chloe stopped suddenly as a funny thought struck her. With a chuckle, she turned to Lois and Clark. "Hey, now that applies to yo...oh."

She trailed off, realizing her gaff. One set of Kents looked at her with wide eyes, while the other shot daggers in her direction.

Chloe shrugged, sheepishly. "Yeah. You were right about not telling me."

END


End file.
